Lancashire were left frustrated as they had to settle for a draw with Gloucestershire on a dramatic final afternoon of their LV= County Championship match at Aigburth.

Gloucestershire's No.11 Liam Norwell fended off the final ball of the game to deny Lancashire their third Division Two win of the season as the visitors finished on 173-9 in a thrilling climax.

Chasing an unlikely victory target of 359, Gloucestershire looked to have saved the game on 150-4 with what ended up being 17 overs left.

But an action-packed conclusion saw them lose five wickets for just 23 runs.

And when Andrea Agathangelou had Graeme McCarter caught by skipper Glen Chapple off the penultimate ball, Lancashire had one delivery left to claim the final wicket.

But in the end, Norwell fended it away to leave Lancashire with nine points from the game, moving them up to joint second in the table.

Hamish Marshall proved to be the hero for Gloucestershire in the end as he batted for just over three-and-a-half hours and faced 206 balls for his 44.

He shared a 54-run stand with Alex Gidman, who made 46, and looked to be guiding his side to safety with a 36-run partnership with Benny Howell before the late clatter of wickets.

With the second new ball just an over old, spinner Simon Kerrigan trapped Howell lbw for 17, then in the next over Chapple bowled Gareth Roderick for a duck.

The skipper added the wicket of Craig Miles, who was caught at second slip by Agathangelou for 12, before Marshall's vigil was brought to an end by a good catch from Ashwell Prince at third slip off the bowling of Wayne White.

And with time running out, and shouts of 'Oh, Lanky Lanky' ringing around Aigburth, Lancashire closed in on victory with the wicket of McCarter, only to be denied on the final ball.

Although Lancashire may be regretting batting on this morning before being bowled out for 270 in their second innings, which took nine overs out of the day, they still managed to bowl 99 overs at Gloucestershire.

"Who said county cricket is boring," said Lancashire coach Peter Moores. "It was a great game.

"It is frustrating because we would have loved to have got one more wicket. And the way the points are structured, there is a big difference between a win and a draw.

"We will take it on the chin, and you have to give Gloucestershire credit, they had a couple of key partnerships which slowed us down.

"We thought about declaring overnight, but we knew we would bowl a lot of overs at them and in the end 99 is more than the 96 you get in a full day's play.

"If we had declared overnight they would have needed to just score at three an over, by adding the extra runs it meant we could keep attacking fields all day.

"We backed ourselves to bowl them out with the overs we had, fair play to them that we didn't."

Lancashire added 31 this morning to their overnight 239-7. White was first to go for 61 as he skied a delivery from McCarter and Michael Klinger took a good catch at long-on.

Chapple followed three overs later as he holed out to substitute fielder James Fuller at long-on off Howell's bowling.

And McCarter ended with 4-95 when Kerrigan was caught by Howell for a duck, leaving Hogg 26 not out.

Meanwhile, Kabir Ali - who has been out since the start of the season with a knee injury - is in the Lancashire squad to face Durham in the YB40 at Emirates Durham ICG tomorrow.